Happy Birthday

My dad phoned this morning, seemingly to just randomly chat. It has just occurred to me that today is my sisters birthday, she was killed 15 years ago in a helicopter accident. The cadet pictured in the clip is one of the others that lost his life, not my sister but the crash pictures are real, still brings tears to my eyes, maybe even more so now I have my own darling children. Happy Birthday Amanda, we still think of you and miss you, can't wait to catch up when I see you again.

Thank-you

I had a conversation with a good friend yesterday, we were talking about trying to be better mothers and wives. Its kinda funny because we were both talking about how we feel pressure of all these things going on around us that just ends up stressing us out, one of the things that came up was thank-you notes, I have to admit I have been terrible with sending thank-you notes over the past few years, pretty much since Kate's 3rd birthday party. I had the best of intentions, I was even just going to send e-mail thank-yous but truth be told I just never got around to it. It doesn't mean I am not thankful though, I can actually look around both of my girls rooms and point out where and who most of their toys came from, Kate got a Dora bat and ball from Luke and Darby, Dora play doh set from Grace, her Maggie Leigh doll from Keaton, safety kids CD which we listen to alll the time from Matthew, the list goes on, from Sara's room (this one is a little tougher as Sara's birthday was big chaos and her cousins and sister helped open her presents so some of them I don't know who they came from) Gabrielle gave her these little Disney books, we actually didn't read them for the first few months but now they are some of Sara's favourite things, her rooster flashlight from Lindsey, PJ's from the Cooke's which she is just out growing and has worn a billion times, a cool Elmo giggle ball who unfortunately I don't know who that came from, etc, etc. And what about other times people have served me? Like the time when Annie McQ gave Eric and I the biggest sandwich you have ever seen when Kate was in the NICU that fed us for 3 days, other dinners that have been brought over and times that people have watched my kids, for real, I have many, many, many thank-yous to send. Am I terrible because I haven't always sent notes? has anyone else ever bailed on the note sending? I seem to get them a lot which kinda adds to the guilt. One of the things that came up was about paying it forward, here is my theory: I'm not 100% convinced that you need to give back directly to the person who has served you, for example - when Sara was a few months old I was miserably sick, 102º fever, I'd seen Christina Anderson at church the day I was feeling it, the next day when I felt I could go on no longer some soup landed on my doorstep, I have never been more grateful for a delicious hot meal in my life, I have never actually taken dinner to Christina but instead have tried to do the same thing for someone else. My point is that maybe people do nice things for you and you can't give back right now but as long as you do give back at some point and to someone, even if it is someone else then that counts, does that make sense?

Anyway, point of this post? THANK-YOU to everyone I should have sent thank-you's to but haven't, I do plan on getting better at it but for now I hope this will do. Sad thing is most people I owe a thank-you to don't read my blog but hopefully if I send this out to the universe it will count in some way.

WARING - GROSS SNAIL POST!!

This is for you Jen Wise - Last night I got back from taking Britain for a walk, looked down the front of the house and saw tons of snails, what is the point of snails? do they actually have a purpose but to destroy all of the lovely vegetation and flowers? Anyway, Sara came out and we picked up all of those in plain view, its but a drop in the ocean I'm sure. Now here is where I get silly, what do I do with them now? Ruthlessly kill them? this is hard for me, they are still one of God's creatures after all. Eric suggested I called Chez Nous, maybe we could make our million in snails!!

Vegas baby!!

So Eric and I took the girls on a little impromptu trip to Las Vegas. I joined the church 15yrs ago through my friend Emma and for the next few years I practically lived at her house, her parents flew to Chicago about 3 weeks ago and drove the Mormon trail, they attended general conference and their final destination was Las Vegas where they would fly home from. Anyway, I knew at Christmas that they would be doing this trip but didn't know if I wanted to schlep the girls to Vegas, a week ago I knew I'd regret it if I didn't meet up with them and so off we went, we had a super fun time and it was well worth the journey. We actually spent most of our time by the pool, here is a quick look:

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!! Here is Cathy giving Sara her 1st sips of diet coke which has been forbidden so far by me. And before the diet coke Sara even took a snooze by the pool snugged up with her cute, cute daddy.

Cathy told me she has missed her grand kids and so my girls got lots of attention.

John and Cathy in the lazy river, still very young at heart. And Kate can now swim unaided and keep her head above the water.

Kate is absolutely not cold from swimming for hours and hours.

Eric's parents were driving to CA from Utah and stopped off in Vegas to meet us for dinner Fri night.

Tomorrow

Toad woke up. "Drat!" he said. "This house is a mess. I have so much work to do." Frog looked through the window. "Toad, you are right," said Frog. "It is a mess." Toad pulled the covers over his head. "I will do it tomorrow," said Toad. "Today I will take life easy."

This is from Days with Frog and Toad, Kate and I love reading these books and lately this is how I feel, the inbox is piling up, I'm getting overwhelmed by it all and I just want to pull the covers over my head and pretend it doesn't exist. Anyway, yesterday was a very welcome day, loved the general conference talks, the Lows came over to watch with us, Tanya found a delicious sounding cake from the Cake Mix Dr. book which we made and after conference took to the beach to eat and fly kites. The kids had a blast, the cake was yummy and the sunset beautiful. We're off to Vegas on Wed night so hopefully a little fun will rejuvenate me!!

Cute kids, Sara, Kevin and Kate. They make watching conference a little tough but they are what it's all about.

A great end to a great day.